Winston sat in the deep shadows beneath a wall whose original purpose wasn’t entirely clear. Across the road lay the expanse of open ground upriver from the Uhuru Community; an expanse marked by the low silhouettes of weeds and shrubs and, farther on, rocks that had been built up on the riverbank as protection from the occasional floods.
Winston looked to each side, spying a half dozen or so other faintly sketched human forms, knowing that there were others that he couldn’t see. He was in the minority—both among this group and in the Community as a whole—in that he wasn’t from the Caribbean islands. He was from the South and had moved North, under the vague impression that his lot in life would improve with each northward step. His disappointment had come in realizing that the increments by which his life improved were very small. And this had led him to the Community, where he had found, well, a community that was not dependent on the tolerance of whites.
He flexed his fingers, reminding himself to be careful with his hands. He’d been in plenty of scraps when he was younger where he’d hurt his hands and ended up playing slide for a couple of weeks until his fingers could move freely again. Now he was a little more careful. Maybe this was what happened as you got older and wiser, or maybe it was just the steady paycheck he’d been getting from Cephus and, starting tomorrow night, from Floyd Christian over at the Palace. Anyway, he was starting to put together a little chunk of money and didn’t want to ball it up by breaking his fist on some crazy ofay’s head.
Another hour passed and he felt himself getting sleepy, his mind wandering to his life down South; memories coming to him as abstractions of rage, sadness, and, mostly, fear. This reverie was interrupted by a shrill whistle and a surge of adrenaline. In the open space he saw the silhouettes of two men and a woman walking in the direction of the Community, gaits stiff with tension. A block and a half away, headlights approached at a crawl. Winston adjusted the stick in his hand, getting his grip tight and comfortable.
The car entered his block and rolled past, less than a dozen yards from him. He watched the car move beyond the group walking in the open space and then stop, the occupants now in position to cut the walkers off from the shanties. Winston watched as four men emerged from the car, holding things—bats, tire irons. The men moved at a trot on a course to intercept the walkers if they tried to make a run for the shanties. Winston’s pulse pounded, blood pumped in his ears, eyes wide and unblinking.
The guy giving the signals waited until the men were too far away to get back to their car, then whistled again. Winston charged, sprinting along with a dozen other men. It was surprisingly quiet, this violent rush; just the slapping of feet on pavement. But it was enough to get the attention of the men from the car and they froze, looking in Winston’s direction. Then they scattered, running in panic.
In some kind of instinctive division of forces, the Community men split up to chase the men from the car, who had, wisely, run in different directions to avoid being caught together. Winston sprinted after a guy, medium height, a little overweight, carrying a tire iron. He was surprised by how nimble the guy was, really moving. But Winston was fast, too, and the overweight guy tired quickly, eventually turning on Winston with his tire iron up, trying to get in a surprise shot. Winston was ready, though, and brought his stick up hard onto the man’s forearm and he dropped the iron, let out a yelp, grabbed at his arm. Probably broken. Winston cracked him across the knees with the stick and the man went down; not fighting back, going fetal and covering his head with his good arm.
Winston caught a blur in his peripheral vision as a kid whose name he didn’t know brought a bat down into the prone guy’s ribs. Winston gave him a couple of shots to the spine and then lost his heart for it. No satisfaction in beating a man when he was down; reduced you to his level. The kid gave the guy a good kick in the face and Winston put a hand gently on the kid’s chest. The kid accepted this and backed away, gasping for air.
The guy was unconscious and bleeding a little from the mouth. Winston and the kid each grabbed an arm and dragged him back to where the Community posse was assembling by the road. Reaching them, they laid the man out next to his three unconscious companions, lined up in a row like sardines by the street. The men talked in their Caribbean patois, but were more somber than boastful. This was work, not sport.
Something up the street caught the men’s attention, and Winston looked to see another set of headlights several blocks away, creeping in their direction. The men backed a few feet away from the bodies, forming a semicircle around them. The car decelerated gradually as it approached and came to a stop next to the bodies—a black Rolls. The window rolled down and behind it was Father Womé, wearing a homburg. He looked at the bodies, frowning thoughtfully, then up at the assembled men. He nodded to them, turned to face forward, and the window rolled up again.